Maury Capitol Hill

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been thinking about this cluster plan a lot, and I have an idea. What if they did the cluster, but the shift to Maury is earlier, at first or second grade?

I’m sympathetic to the double drop off problem and the feeling that a lot of people leave Maury at 5th anyway, so 3-5 feels really short. BUT I think the socioeconomic and racial segregation between Maury and Miner is a big problem. And I don’t buy the argument that fixing Maury/Miner isn’t legitimate or worthwhile because it doesn’t solve problems for the rest of DCPS. Here we have two schools so close together with such disparate populations and outcomes, and they can solve it while still allowing people to walk to school in their own neighborhoods. Plus, Miner’s strength is its excellent ECE program and its weakness is the upper grades. I agree a cluster isn’t ideal as a general matter, but if it can be done well, the payoff for integration seems worth it, honestly. And I do think integration matters for its own sake. I also agree that IB buy in is necessary for the plan to work.

Miner already has a great pre-k and K staff. Maury is already so crowded for pre-k that you can’t get in without a sibling preference. It might be more palatable for people to spend an extra year or two at Miner and switch to Maury at First or Second. Plus, the pre-K and K kids do a lot together at Miner already, so it could make sense for that group. And they will have the new facility!

For those who oppose the cluster, it might be worthwhile pitching this to the DME as an alternative. That way, if they don’t jettison the plan altogether, maybe you’ll get this as a compromise. For those who support the cluster, maybe this will help ensure the buy in that’s necessary if we want integration to happen.

The Cluster is supposed to start around 2nd as it is. It's based entirely on space considerations. Not at all clear why you think this is a compromise.

I thought it was supposed to start at 3rd. But anyway, shifting to Maury at 1st or 2nd seems workable.

Pick any grade you want. It doesn’t make it more palatable to people watching the local school get worse.

See this kind of argument is why it feels like it’s not just about quality of the school. Miner’s pre-K and early grades are strong. The problems come later. It wouldn’t be worse, especially if people were willing to participate.

Did you forget that kids still do age?

So your argument is that a school is “worse” just because more at risk kids are there? Sorry, I just don’t believe that. I think it’s clear that there are problems that come with very high concentrations of socioeconomic disadvantage, which is why some solution here makes sense. But short of that, I see the diversity as a major positive for everyone involved. I’d rather my kid go to a Maury-Miner cluster with 30% at risk than Miner as it currently stands, with such a high at risk percentage that it’s hard to serve all of the kids—but I’d also prefer it to a school like Janney, where there is almost no socioeconomic diversity. The diversity on Capitol Hill makes it possible to achieve balance in a way that’s just geographically harder in Ward 3 or Ward 7 and 8, and that’s a good thing.

Narrator in three years: She did not send her child to the Maury-Miner cluster.

[phone]

[Anonymous]

The DME website still lists Janney's meeting — scheduled for yesterday — as "Monday, December 18 at 6:00 p.m. Meeting materials will be shared when they are available." Miner's meeting tonight is the same. They also still have not uploaded materials from last week's town halls. They can't even handle the basic administrative functions of their job; cannot believe they are allowed to make substantive proposals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The DME website still lists Janney's meeting — scheduled for yesterday — as "Monday, December 18 at 6:00 p.m. Meeting materials will be shared when they are available." Miner's meeting tonight is the same. They also still have not uploaded materials from last week's town halls. They can't even handle the basic administrative functions of their job; cannot believe they are allowed to make substantive proposals.

Is Miner's meeting still happening tonight?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The DME website still lists Janney's meeting — scheduled for yesterday — as "Monday, December 18 at 6:00 p.m. Meeting materials will be shared when they are available." Miner's meeting tonight is the same. They also still have not uploaded materials from last week's town halls. They can't even handle the basic administrative functions of their job; cannot believe they are allowed to make substantive proposals.

Is Miner's meeting still happening tonight?

As far as I know. The Miner LSAT webpage says this:

Upcoming Events​
Tuesday, December 19
​5:00 PM - 6:30 PM via Zoom // LSAT Meeting: All are welcome to observe the Local School Advisory Team's discussions with Interim Principal Plenty. We will also be joined by someone with the Deputy Mayor for Education's office to discuss the 2023 Boundary Study. Click here for the link to join the virtual meeting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been thinking about this cluster plan a lot, and I have an idea. What if they did the cluster, but the shift to Maury is earlier, at first or second grade?

I’m sympathetic to the double drop off problem and the feeling that a lot of people leave Maury at 5th anyway, so 3-5 feels really short. BUT I think the socioeconomic and racial segregation between Maury and Miner is a big problem. And I don’t buy the argument that fixing Maury/Miner isn’t legitimate or worthwhile because it doesn’t solve problems for the rest of DCPS. Here we have two schools so close together with such disparate populations and outcomes, and they can solve it while still allowing people to walk to school in their own neighborhoods. Plus, Miner’s strength is its excellent ECE program and its weakness is the upper grades. I agree a cluster isn’t ideal as a general matter, but if it can be done well, the payoff for integration seems worth it, honestly. And I do think integration matters for its own sake. I also agree that IB buy in is necessary for the plan to work.

Miner already has a great pre-k and K staff. Maury is already so crowded for pre-k that you can’t get in without a sibling preference. It might be more palatable for people to spend an extra year or two at Miner and switch to Maury at First or Second. Plus, the pre-K and K kids do a lot together at Miner already, so it could make sense for that group. And they will have the new facility!

For those who oppose the cluster, it might be worthwhile pitching this to the DME as an alternative. That way, if they don’t jettison the plan altogether, maybe you’ll get this as a compromise. For those who support the cluster, maybe this will help ensure the buy in that’s necessary if we want integration to happen.

The Cluster is supposed to start around 2nd as it is. It's based entirely on space considerations. Not at all clear why you think this is a compromise.

I thought it was supposed to start at 3rd. But anyway, shifting to Maury at 1st or 2nd seems workable.

The presentation they gave at the town halls last week said Miner PK-1 and Maury 2-5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been thinking about this cluster plan a lot, and I have an idea. What if they did the cluster, but the shift to Maury is earlier, at first or second grade?

I’m sympathetic to the double drop off problem and the feeling that a lot of people leave Maury at 5th anyway, so 3-5 feels really short. BUT I think the socioeconomic and racial segregation between Maury and Miner is a big problem. And I don’t buy the argument that fixing Maury/Miner isn’t legitimate or worthwhile because it doesn’t solve problems for the rest of DCPS. Here we have two schools so close together with such disparate populations and outcomes, and they can solve it while still allowing people to walk to school in their own neighborhoods. Plus, Miner’s strength is its excellent ECE program and its weakness is the upper grades. I agree a cluster isn’t ideal as a general matter, but if it can be done well, the payoff for integration seems worth it, honestly. And I do think integration matters for its own sake. I also agree that IB buy in is necessary for the plan to work.

Miner already has a great pre-k and K staff. Maury is already so crowded for pre-k that you can’t get in without a sibling preference. It might be more palatable for people to spend an extra year or two at Miner and switch to Maury at First or Second. Plus, the pre-K and K kids do a lot together at Miner already, so it could make sense for that group. And they will have the new facility!

For those who oppose the cluster, it might be worthwhile pitching this to the DME as an alternative. That way, if they don’t jettison the plan altogether, maybe you’ll get this as a compromise. For those who support the cluster, maybe this will help ensure the buy in that’s necessary if we want integration to happen.

The Cluster is supposed to start around 2nd as it is. It's based entirely on space considerations. Not at all clear why you think this is a compromise.

I thought it was supposed to start at 3rd. But anyway, shifting to Maury at 1st or 2nd seems workable.

The presentation they gave at the town halls last week said Miner PK-1 and Maury 2-5.

I think given current demand for ECE at both Miner and Maury (high) and current demand for 5th at both Maury and Miner (lower), this makes the most sense. I actually think you can make an argument for the cluster based purely on a utilitization argument -- Maury is oversubscribed for PK and loses many IB students at 5th; Miner will soon have a surfeit of ECE classrooms including a brand new building and has strong enrollment for these grades, but also has smaller cohorts in the upper grades. So moving both schools ECE programs to Miners will allow them to utilize both existing and new ECE classrooms at that campus, take advantage of Miner's existing strong reputation for ECE, and resolve the problem of too few PK spots available for IB Maury families. Moving both schools 2-5 to Maury will fill out Maury's 5th year cohort with IB or longtime OOB families (instead of new lottery admits when Maury's current IB 5th graders depart for Latin and Basis), thus improving the continuity between these elementary schools and EH.

I know people will argue aspects of this, but the point is that you can make an argument for the cluster that doesn't even touch on demographics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been thinking about this cluster plan a lot, and I have an idea. What if they did the cluster, but the shift to Maury is earlier, at first or second grade?

I’m sympathetic to the double drop off problem and the feeling that a lot of people leave Maury at 5th anyway, so 3-5 feels really short. BUT I think the socioeconomic and racial segregation between Maury and Miner is a big problem. And I don’t buy the argument that fixing Maury/Miner isn’t legitimate or worthwhile because it doesn’t solve problems for the rest of DCPS. Here we have two schools so close together with such disparate populations and outcomes, and they can solve it while still allowing people to walk to school in their own neighborhoods. Plus, Miner’s strength is its excellent ECE program and its weakness is the upper grades. I agree a cluster isn’t ideal as a general matter, but if it can be done well, the payoff for integration seems worth it, honestly. And I do think integration matters for its own sake. I also agree that IB buy in is necessary for the plan to work.

Miner already has a great pre-k and K staff. Maury is already so crowded for pre-k that you can’t get in without a sibling preference. It might be more palatable for people to spend an extra year or two at Miner and switch to Maury at First or Second. Plus, the pre-K and K kids do a lot together at Miner already, so it could make sense for that group. And they will have the new facility!

For those who oppose the cluster, it might be worthwhile pitching this to the DME as an alternative. That way, if they don’t jettison the plan altogether, maybe you’ll get this as a compromise. For those who support the cluster, maybe this will help ensure the buy in that’s necessary if we want integration to happen.

The Cluster is supposed to start around 2nd as it is. It's based entirely on space considerations. Not at all clear why you think this is a compromise.

I thought it was supposed to start at 3rd. But anyway, shifting to Maury at 1st or 2nd seems workable.

The presentation they gave at the town halls last week said Miner PK-1 and Maury 2-5.

I think given current demand for ECE at both Miner and Maury (high) and current demand for 5th at both Maury and Miner (lower), this makes the most sense. I actually think you can make an argument for the cluster based purely on a utilitization argument -- Maury is oversubscribed for PK and loses many IB students at 5th; Miner will soon have a surfeit of ECE classrooms including a brand new building and has strong enrollment for these grades, but also has smaller cohorts in the upper grades. So moving both schools ECE programs to Miners will allow them to utilize both existing and new ECE classrooms at that campus, take advantage of Miner's existing strong reputation for ECE, and resolve the problem of too few PK spots available for IB Maury families. Moving both schools 2-5 to Maury will fill out Maury's 5th year cohort with IB or longtime OOB families (instead of new lottery admits when Maury's current IB 5th graders depart for Latin and Basis), thus improving the continuity between these elementary schools and EH.

I know people will argue aspects of this, but the point is that you can make an argument for the cluster that doesn't even touch on demographics.

All of these comments about Miner's and Maury's programs make it sounds as though Miner will just become the ECE and Maury will magically become the upper grades. This will require essentially taking two schools apart and putting them back together. Schools with different administrations, teachers, cultures, and traditions. We don't know what the new school will look like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been thinking about this cluster plan a lot, and I have an idea. What if they did the cluster, but the shift to Maury is earlier, at first or second grade?

I’m sympathetic to the double drop off problem and the feeling that a lot of people leave Maury at 5th anyway, so 3-5 feels really short. BUT I think the socioeconomic and racial segregation between Maury and Miner is a big problem. And I don’t buy the argument that fixing Maury/Miner isn’t legitimate or worthwhile because it doesn’t solve problems for the rest of DCPS. Here we have two schools so close together with such disparate populations and outcomes, and they can solve it while still allowing people to walk to school in their own neighborhoods. Plus, Miner’s strength is its excellent ECE program and its weakness is the upper grades. I agree a cluster isn’t ideal as a general matter, but if it can be done well, the payoff for integration seems worth it, honestly. And I do think integration matters for its own sake. I also agree that IB buy in is necessary for the plan to work.

Miner already has a great pre-k and K staff. Maury is already so crowded for pre-k that you can’t get in without a sibling preference. It might be more palatable for people to spend an extra year or two at Miner and switch to Maury at First or Second. Plus, the pre-K and K kids do a lot together at Miner already, so it could make sense for that group. And they will have the new facility!

For those who oppose the cluster, it might be worthwhile pitching this to the DME as an alternative. That way, if they don’t jettison the plan altogether, maybe you’ll get this as a compromise. For those who support the cluster, maybe this will help ensure the buy in that’s necessary if we want integration to happen.

The Cluster is supposed to start around 2nd as it is. It's based entirely on space considerations. Not at all clear why you think this is a compromise.

I thought it was supposed to start at 3rd. But anyway, shifting to Maury at 1st or 2nd seems workable.

The presentation they gave at the town halls last week said Miner PK-1 and Maury 2-5.

I think given current demand for ECE at both Miner and Maury (high) and current demand for 5th at both Maury and Miner (lower), this makes the most sense. I actually think you can make an argument for the cluster based purely on a utilitization argument -- Maury is oversubscribed for PK and loses many IB students at 5th; Miner will soon have a surfeit of ECE classrooms including a brand new building and has strong enrollment for these grades, but also has smaller cohorts in the upper grades. So moving both schools ECE programs to Miners will allow them to utilize both existing and new ECE classrooms at that campus, take advantage of Miner's existing strong reputation for ECE, and resolve the problem of too few PK spots available for IB Maury families. Moving both schools 2-5 to Maury will fill out Maury's 5th year cohort with IB or longtime OOB families (instead of new lottery admits when Maury's current IB 5th graders depart for Latin and Basis), thus improving the continuity between these elementary schools and EH.

I know people will argue aspects of this, but the point is that you can make an argument for the cluster that doesn't even touch on demographics.

2-5 will end up mostly OOB.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been thinking about this cluster plan a lot, and I have an idea. What if they did the cluster, but the shift to Maury is earlier, at first or second grade?

I’m sympathetic to the double drop off problem and the feeling that a lot of people leave Maury at 5th anyway, so 3-5 feels really short. BUT I think the socioeconomic and racial segregation between Maury and Miner is a big problem. And I don’t buy the argument that fixing Maury/Miner isn’t legitimate or worthwhile because it doesn’t solve problems for the rest of DCPS. Here we have two schools so close together with such disparate populations and outcomes, and they can solve it while still allowing people to walk to school in their own neighborhoods. Plus, Miner’s strength is its excellent ECE program and its weakness is the upper grades. I agree a cluster isn’t ideal as a general matter, but if it can be done well, the payoff for integration seems worth it, honestly. And I do think integration matters for its own sake. I also agree that IB buy in is necessary for the plan to work.

Miner already has a great pre-k and K staff. Maury is already so crowded for pre-k that you can’t get in without a sibling preference. It might be more palatable for people to spend an extra year or two at Miner and switch to Maury at First or Second. Plus, the pre-K and K kids do a lot together at Miner already, so it could make sense for that group. And they will have the new facility!

For those who oppose the cluster, it might be worthwhile pitching this to the DME as an alternative. That way, if they don’t jettison the plan altogether, maybe you’ll get this as a compromise. For those who support the cluster, maybe this will help ensure the buy in that’s necessary if we want integration to happen.

The Cluster is supposed to start around 2nd as it is. It's based entirely on space considerations. Not at all clear why you think this is a compromise.

I thought it was supposed to start at 3rd. But anyway, shifting to Maury at 1st or 2nd seems workable.

The presentation they gave at the town halls last week said Miner PK-1 and Maury 2-5.

I think given current demand for ECE at both Miner and Maury (high) and current demand for 5th at both Maury and Miner (lower), this makes the most sense. I actually think you can make an argument for the cluster based purely on a utilitization argument -- Maury is oversubscribed for PK and loses many IB students at 5th; Miner will soon have a surfeit of ECE classrooms including a brand new building and has strong enrollment for these grades, but also has smaller cohorts in the upper grades. So moving both schools ECE programs to Miners will allow them to utilize both existing and new ECE classrooms at that campus, take advantage of Miner's existing strong reputation for ECE, and resolve the problem of too few PK spots available for IB Maury families. Moving both schools 2-5 to Maury will fill out Maury's 5th year cohort with IB or longtime OOB families (instead of new lottery admits when Maury's current IB 5th graders depart for Latin and Basis), thus improving the continuity between these elementary schools and EH.

I know people will argue aspects of this, but the point is that you can make an argument for the cluster that doesn't even touch on demographics.

I'm sorry, I don't understand this. Are the students you are talking about "filling out" Maury's 5th year cohort not already going on to EH? If not, where are they going, and why would they change? If so, how would that "improve" continuity? Wouldn't it be the same? Is it just that the same kids going on to EH would now nominally be coming from Maury rather than Miner (even though the same kids at Maury who wouldn't go to EH now would not go in this scenario)?

I actually think the proposed cluster is bad for EH. At 40% at-risk school-wide (with presumably an even higher concentration in 5th) at Maury, I think more parents than now will opt out of Maury before going to middle. And with 43% at-risk school-wide at the Miner lower school, I think parents with options are likelier than now never to opt in to begin with. As a result, I think the flow of higher SES kids into EH, which has been steadily improving at Maury, will take a big hit, setting EH back years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been thinking about this cluster plan a lot, and I have an idea. What if they did the cluster, but the shift to Maury is earlier, at first or second grade?

I’m sympathetic to the double drop off problem and the feeling that a lot of people leave Maury at 5th anyway, so 3-5 feels really short. BUT I think the socioeconomic and racial segregation between Maury and Miner is a big problem. And I don’t buy the argument that fixing Maury/Miner isn’t legitimate or worthwhile because it doesn’t solve problems for the rest of DCPS. Here we have two schools so close together with such disparate populations and outcomes, and they can solve it while still allowing people to walk to school in their own neighborhoods. Plus, Miner’s strength is its excellent ECE program and its weakness is the upper grades. I agree a cluster isn’t ideal as a general matter, but if it can be done well, the payoff for integration seems worth it, honestly. And I do think integration matters for its own sake. I also agree that IB buy in is necessary for the plan to work.

Miner already has a great pre-k and K staff. Maury is already so crowded for pre-k that you can’t get in without a sibling preference. It might be more palatable for people to spend an extra year or two at Miner and switch to Maury at First or Second. Plus, the pre-K and K kids do a lot together at Miner already, so it could make sense for that group. And they will have the new facility!

For those who oppose the cluster, it might be worthwhile pitching this to the DME as an alternative. That way, if they don’t jettison the plan altogether, maybe you’ll get this as a compromise. For those who support the cluster, maybe this will help ensure the buy in that’s necessary if we want integration to happen.

The Cluster is supposed to start around 2nd as it is. It's based entirely on space considerations. Not at all clear why you think this is a compromise.

I thought it was supposed to start at 3rd. But anyway, shifting to Maury at 1st or 2nd seems workable.

The presentation they gave at the town halls last week said Miner PK-1 and Maury 2-5.

I think given current demand for ECE at both Miner and Maury (high) and current demand for 5th at both Maury and Miner (lower), this makes the most sense. I actually think you can make an argument for the cluster based purely on a utilitization argument -- Maury is oversubscribed for PK and loses many IB students at 5th; Miner will soon have a surfeit of ECE classrooms including a brand new building and has strong enrollment for these grades, but also has smaller cohorts in the upper grades. So moving both schools ECE programs to Miners will allow them to utilize both existing and new ECE classrooms at that campus, take advantage of Miner's existing strong reputation for ECE, and resolve the problem of too few PK spots available for IB Maury families. Moving both schools 2-5 to Maury will fill out Maury's 5th year cohort with IB or longtime OOB families (instead of new lottery admits when Maury's current IB 5th graders depart for Latin and Basis), thus improving the continuity between these elementary schools and EH.

I know people will argue aspects of this, but the point is that you can make an argument for the cluster that doesn't even touch on demographics.

All of these comments about Miner's and Maury's programs make it sounds as though Miner will just become the ECE and Maury will magically become the upper grades. This will require essentially taking two schools apart and putting them back together. Schools with different administrations, teachers, cultures, and traditions. We don't know what the new school will look like.

This!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The DME website still lists Janney's meeting — scheduled for yesterday — as "Monday, December 18 at 6:00 p.m. Meeting materials will be shared when they are available." Miner's meeting tonight is the same. They also still have not uploaded materials from last week's town halls. They can't even handle the basic administrative functions of their job; cannot believe they are allowed to make substantive proposals.

If you log into Zoom via your browser and not the App, you can't get into a breakout room for the second half of the Town Hall which will cover whatever boundary issue is of most interest to you. This is/was a known issue before the Town Hall started.....and many of us were told "too bad, too sad" and left out of the breakout rooms after sitting through an hour of generalities. It's like DME doesn't actually want feedback or care.

Log in via the Zoom App for online town halls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been thinking about this cluster plan a lot, and I have an idea. What if they did the cluster, but the shift to Maury is earlier, at first or second grade?

I’m sympathetic to the double drop off problem and the feeling that a lot of people leave Maury at 5th anyway, so 3-5 feels really short. BUT I think the socioeconomic and racial segregation between Maury and Miner is a big problem. And I don’t buy the argument that fixing Maury/Miner isn’t legitimate or worthwhile because it doesn’t solve problems for the rest of DCPS. Here we have two schools so close together with such disparate populations and outcomes, and they can solve it while still allowing people to walk to school in their own neighborhoods. Plus, Miner’s strength is its excellent ECE program and its weakness is the upper grades. I agree a cluster isn’t ideal as a general matter, but if it can be done well, the payoff for integration seems worth it, honestly. And I do think integration matters for its own sake. I also agree that IB buy in is necessary for the plan to work.

Miner already has a great pre-k and K staff. Maury is already so crowded for pre-k that you can’t get in without a sibling preference. It might be more palatable for people to spend an extra year or two at Miner and switch to Maury at First or Second. Plus, the pre-K and K kids do a lot together at Miner already, so it could make sense for that group. And they will have the new facility!

For those who oppose the cluster, it might be worthwhile pitching this to the DME as an alternative. That way, if they don’t jettison the plan altogether, maybe you’ll get this as a compromise. For those who support the cluster, maybe this will help ensure the buy in that’s necessary if we want integration to happen.

The Cluster is supposed to start around 2nd as it is. It's based entirely on space considerations. Not at all clear why you think this is a compromise.

I thought it was supposed to start at 3rd. But anyway, shifting to Maury at 1st or 2nd seems workable.

The presentation they gave at the town halls last week said Miner PK-1 and Maury 2-5.

I think given current demand for ECE at both Miner and Maury (high) and current demand for 5th at both Maury and Miner (lower), this makes the most sense. I actually think you can make an argument for the cluster based purely on a utilitization argument -- Maury is oversubscribed for PK and loses many IB students at 5th; Miner will soon have a surfeit of ECE classrooms including a brand new building and has strong enrollment for these grades, but also has smaller cohorts in the upper grades. So moving both schools ECE programs to Miners will allow them to utilize both existing and new ECE classrooms at that campus, take advantage of Miner's existing strong reputation for ECE, and resolve the problem of too few PK spots available for IB Maury families. Moving both schools 2-5 to Maury will fill out Maury's 5th year cohort with IB or longtime OOB families (instead of new lottery admits when Maury's current IB 5th graders depart for Latin and Basis), thus improving the continuity between these elementary schools and EH.

I know people will argue aspects of this, but the point is that you can make an argument for the cluster that doesn't even touch on demographics.

All of these comments about Miner's and Maury's programs make it sounds as though Miner will just become the ECE and Maury will magically become the upper grades. This will require essentially taking two schools apart and putting them back together. Schools with different administrations, teachers, cultures, and traditions. We don't know what the new school will look like.

This!!

What we do know is that the administration at Miner is bad. And the school has low IB participation, terrible test scores and low rates of reenrollment. Everyone talking as though this is about not wanting the kids & families who go to Miner are being really unfair. A Cluster isn't just taking those kids... it's taking on Miner itself, and that seems guaranteed to make the Maury experience worse from a host of perpsectives.

[Anonymous]

As a future Miner parent who didn't bother to research school boundaries when we bought our house, I couldn't be more thrilled! Can't wait to check out Maury, the facility looks great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a future Miner parent who didn't bother to research school boundaries when we bought our house, I couldn't be more thrilled! Can't wait to check out Maury, the facility looks great.

LOL. This isn’t a move for equity. It’s for home equity.

[Anonymous]

Miner meeting was a little interesting. Obviously Miner parents are more open to the idea, though I thought other than three or four very excited parents support seemed a little muted.

DME continues to say Peabody/Watkins is not a perfect comparison, so they’ve cobbled together from examples from other school districts. I take this as a pretty bad sign, that instead of realizing what a stupid plan this is, they are trying to backfill the huge holes in their plan.

The boundary tool shows average driving distance going up to .7 at both schools. Someone asked about how this was calculated—I think clearly trying to determine whether potentially having to commute to two schools was taken into account—but the DME lady declined to answer.

DME lady is all hot on choice sets now, so she brought those up and said she is taking the idea to the Advisory Committee tomorrow.

DME lady stated pretty clearly that this is solely about demographics, not educational outcomes—so presumably they weren’t able to cobble together any compelling evidence there.

A few comments about Maury parents’ reaction, including a Miner dad who invited Maury families to leave the school if they don’t like it. A Miner mom who was clearly sore to have failed to lottery into Maury (and is therefore against at-risk set asides). DME lady said she was sympathetic to the “heartache” Miner parents must have felt at some of the Maury comments. It is ungood to oppose the cluster and doubleplus ungood to say so.